


Always Darkest before the Sunrise

by LadyLondonderry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Magic, Magical Creatures, Minor Niall Horan/Liam Payne, Orphans, Salem Witch Trials, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 20:34:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14144007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: Salem, Massachusetts, 17th century.“You have attacked without need and without mercy, you have used arts so dark they are of the Evil One, and for that you cannot be allowed to walk free.”What?Harry starts struggling. It’s no use, he’s not even doing it with any sort of rational plan, the whole town at this point stands between him and freedom, but the words leaking from the preacher’s lips are filling him with a bile more sickening than he’s ever known.“Harry Styles, ward of the church no longer, you are under arrest for the use of witchcraft against the innocent townspeople of Salem, Massachusetts.”





	Always Darkest before the Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much, Rachel, for allowing me to be a part of this! And thanks to everybody who heard me moan and complain about not having any time to write for weeks on end! You're all superheroes.

_ “Mrs. Posey’s daughter, they say.” _

_ “Cursed.” _

_ “Witches.” _

_ “Witches? Here?” _

_ “Most certainly. Say they know who they are, they do.” _

_ “In our town? Ridiculous.” _

_ “Is is though? Mrs. Posey’s daughter. Mr. Hardacher’s son two weeks ago.” _

_ “Preposterous.” _

_ “Curses.” _

_ “Cursed.” _

_ “Witches. Here.” _

_ “Witches.” _

— 

Harry hears wonderful things about England.

He spends large amounts of time daydreaming about what it would be like there. Apparently it’s very crowded, according to the stories. There are people everywhere, and big stone buildings that don’t creak in the wind the way the wooden ones here do. Everything is made of wood here, and sometimes Harry thinks that that’s a disaster waiting to happen. One overturned lantern, one candle burning too long and the whole town could be gone in a moment. 

He pointed this out to the preacher once, who gave a very uncomfortable look in his direction. He probably prayed for Harry a lot that night.

The preacher often tells Harry that he’s praying for him. Harry thinks that it’s supposed to be a supportive sort of thing to say, but it always sounds more like a threat. He knows very well just how much of a sad, sorry toll on the church he is, thank you very much. 

Harry hears the churches are grander in England. He hears the churches over there take in lots of children without parents. Maybe if he were in England, he wouldn’t feel nearly so alone. 

The church in Salem may be the largest in the area, but it still feels small and cramped, especially in the attic, which was only built as a platform to ring the bells from before Harry came around.

As it is now, it’s only large enough for Harry’s sleeping quarters and his chest, which contains three outfits too worn through and small for him to really wear anymore, and his bible and notebook.

He can read a little, enough to stumble through a passage of the bible if he concentrates enough, but his notebook is mostly for other things. Drawings and flower pressings and the like. It’s the only thing left to him from his parents, and when he daydreams about running away to England, it’s the only thing he thinks about taking with him. 

When Harry was a child, he remembers being called a church mouse by the congregation; the one who lived in, tidied and swept, and rang the bells of the church. Now that he’s an adult, though (a mere seventeen years, but an adult nonetheless), he’s begun to hear their tone change when they think he’s not around; no longer the little church mouse, he’s apparently grown into the church rat in the congregation's eyes. Too big for their space, too much of a drain on their precious resources. Room and food has apparently become too much to ask for the physical upkeep of the building in their eyes.

The preacher has never mentioned anything of the like to him, but sometimes Harry thinks it won’t be too long before he’s out on the street like the local drunk, and no usable skills to help him. 

— 

Harry had been friends with Adella. Adella Posey; she was two years younger than he was, but she had always kind. Nearly fifteen; already a young woman and soon to be engaged. Everyone knew she was going to be engaged to Tyler Booze. They’d been planning it since they were children drawing rings on their fingers with clay from the riverbank. 

Adella had been kind to Harry. It wasn’t that most people were  _ unkind, _ exactly, but she had gone out of her way to include him, even when they were children and he would be sitting in the back of the one-room schoolhouse, struggling with the simplest arithmetic. None of the other children mentioned the way the numbers danced around the page, but for Harry it was like they would never stay in the same place long enough for him to get any sort of addition done. Adella was one of the ones who never laughed at him though. She had been kind.

Then again, she hasn’t been much of anything since she’s fallen asleep.

That’s what the physician called it, apparently, when he came around the Posey’s residence.  _ A deep sleep, _ so the whispers around the village go.  _ They can’t wake her up for anything. It’s unnatural, you know. _

No one ever whispers to Harry. The gossip is never meant for his ears, but it reaches him anyway. It never seems to occur to anyone that up in the bell tower just isn’t that far up, and Harry might not be able to read, but there’s not an issue at all with his ears. They gossip when they think no one is around to hear the way they talk about her. Like she’s a shoddy little no-good child who was taken by something  _ darker. _

Harry’s not sure what’s darker than a couple of old hags who spend their every breath speaking treachery  of everyone out of earshot, their malice growing plain on the draw of their lips day by day, but what does he know?

— 

Over the bank of the river, where Harry routinely soaks his trousers while trying to jump through, there’s a field of bluebottle. The foundations of a farmhouse are built in the far edge of the field, a home that succumbed to fire long before Harry ever explored the area. He often wonders who lived there, but the few people he’s asked don’t have the slightest clue.

When Harry doesn’t have duties to attend to at the church, and it’s still hours yet until the bells for evening prayer are to ring, he likes to escape to the field with his notebook. He’s explored all around the area surrounding Salem, but this field has always called to him. In the summer when the bluebottle blooms, it’s fragrant and colorful and the perfect place to take a nap in. 

Today he’s here because it’s quieter than the village, out here in the field his hair isn’t standing on end from every townsperson looking suspiciously at everyone else, as if they could figure out who the witch is just from staring. 

It was someone else this time, another girl only a year younger than him - Isabella Sweet, found in a deep sleep at her dining table. No one claims to have been around her, or claims to have seen anyone else around her, but the accusations are getting less quiet by the day. Harry shudders to think what the village will be like in a few weeks’ time, the way they’re slowly working themselves into a frenzy of accusations. 

Maybe he would be one of them, too, if he weren’t so separated from the rest of the village. The last time he had any sort of personal conversation with anyone was probably back when they were all in the small schoolhouse, attempting to learn their letters together. It’s been years and everyone else’s lives continued to grow and evolve, fill with interesting stories and events, while Harry continued to clean the church and ring the bells.

He doesn’t nap, but he does lay in the grass for a long time. The bluebottles around him make the whole field a sort of hazy blend of blue and green, and just breathing in the smell of them is calming, somehow. 

He doesn’t get up again until the sun is beginning to set, feeling much better than he had earlier; calm and centered. Before he leaves, he very carefully looks around and selects one of the smaller flowers and opens his journal, gingerly placing it inside, on a page that already sports a number of other bluebottle blooms from the last few weeks. 

— 

Leaving his field and making the walk back into town feels like the journey of the setting sun. The field, in the orange light,  gives the most beautiful mix of colors, the calming smell of grass and flowers, and the quiet noise of the river nearby. Crossing over the river feels like crossing a barrier of some kind, and as the light grows dimmer, the walk into town feels more and more grim. 

The first person he sees at the edge of the houses, is Sarah Marie, who is only a few years younger than himself. Her usual blank, annoyed look at life becomes a scowl when she sees him, and she doesn’t stop watching him until he awkwardly makes his way through a side alley to escape her gaze.

The second person he sees is John, the blacksmith. He’s sitting at the doorway to his home, moustache bristling like he’s smelled a skunk. He looks for a moment like he wants to say something to Harry, but instead turns and walks inside, slamming the door behind him.

The town feels oddly deserted for this early in the evening. People should be just heading home, in conversation with one another as they go, but the streets are more or less empty, the sun casting long and dark shadows across the dirt paths. 

The church sits at the center of town, its steeple barely visible over the tops of the houses from wherever Harry goes, but as he walks toward it tonight, Harry begins to feel more and more trepidation building inside of him. He feels unsafe. He wonders if this is because someone else has fallen ill. Could he be next?

The final turn puts him at the beginning of the street that dead ends at the church, and that is when he finally finds where the townspeople have disappeared to.

They’re standing crowded at the base of the church; Harry is too far to hear what they’re saying, but they seem almost like a swarm of bees, angry and buzzing and ready to sting. The townspeople his own age tolerate Harry at best, but those older than him often feel like they’re just waiting for him to misstep, or seeing missteps he just hasn’t realised he’s taken yet. He doesn’t want to have to go through an angry mob just to get into his home. He stops after only a few more steps forward, wondering if he should just return to his field and stay the night until whatever is happening at the base of the church disperses. He doesn’t want to get in the middle (literally) of whatever it is.

Of course, as is the way of things, just as Harry has decided to take a step back, perhaps round a corner back the way he came, someone from the mob happens to look his direction. He’s a number of houses down, but Harry thinks he makes out the face of Gabriel Walthow, a farmer.

“There!” he shouts, pointing in Harry’s direction. Harry looks around, trying to figure out what he’s pointing at. Surely not  _ him? _

“Harry! Stop right there!”

From the center of the crowd emerges the preacher, and from even this far away Harry can recognize a darkened expression, set and serious on his face.

And sure, Harry was all for obeying his command of staying still, but it becomes significantly more difficult not to make a run for it when the crowd at the base of the church surges forward, and Harry begins to feel like a rabbit in the face of a pack of coyotes, ravenous and starved. 

In that split second he considers running, but there’s too  much indecision. Where would he go? He has nowhere to run  _ to, _ only people to run from. There would never be an end destination for him if he left the only place he’s called home. 

They surround him, a wild and buzzing mass of anger, loud and disorienting. Harry feels his arms grasped and pulled behind his back, presumably from two different men by the way they briefly pull in different directions, making him stumble. 

One voice makes itself heard above the rest, and suddenly the preacher materializes before him, dark robes adding to his looming stance as he fixes Harry with his stare.

“Harry, my boy,” he says, although Harry has never truly been a boy of his. “You have strayed too far. I let you under my roof and you have betrayed everything the church is.”

_ It was never your roof, _ the rational side of Harry thinks.  _ The church belongs to the people, the congregation, the town. _

“You have attacked without need and without mercy, you have used arts so dark they are of the Evil One, and for that you cannot be allowed to walk free.”

_ What? _

Harry starts struggling. It’s no use, he’s not even doing it with any sort of rational plan, the whole town at this point stands between him and freedom, but the words leaking from the preacher’s lips are filling him with a bile more sickening than he’s ever known.

“Harry Styles, ward of the church no longer, you are under arrest for the use of witchcraft against the innocent townspeople of Salem, Massachusetts.”

As he is dragged away, stumbling through the streets with threats and curses yelled into his ears from every townsperson around, Harry doesn’t protest. He doesn’t try to fight back. He feels, deep inside of him, the hopelessness of the situation and the knowledge, the knowledge buried so far down, that this was never his home. These are not his people and this is not his home and anything he says here would fall on deaf and hostile ears, because no one is going to believe an outsider over one of their own.

— 

The jail is cold, moist, and mossy.

Harry is alone.

It’s almost insulting, honestly, that the whole town seems to believe him to be ‘ _ the witch’ _ and yet they’ve left him unguarded and alone.

The warden left hours ago, leaving Harry with a view of the door through thick, iron bars, but no real possibility of escape. The small window up above him would barely be enough to stick his arms through. The only thing it’s good for now is watching the slow rise of the moon.

The chill of the night air seeps in and Harry curls around himself to preserve the bit of warmth he has left. There’s a pot in the corner of the cell, but nothing else furnishes the space, and the wall he’s leaning against is cold and hard.

There will be no trial, apparently. The trial was held without him, in the form of town gossip that grew into a rumor that turned into truth. From what Harry can gather, apparently he’s held grudges against each of the people who’ve been attacked. Apparently, he’s not known morals even as a child. Apparently, the town knew something was the matter with him all along. 

At least, that’s what he parsed together from the crowd as they clamored for his death from the other side of the bars. They had grabbed his journal from him and shook it loose, the pressed flowers falling to the ground.  _ Magic, _ they had screamed.  _ Enchantments. Spells. Evil.  _  It’s strange to feel safer inside of a jail cell than out of it.

His stomach growls, startlingly loud in the silent building. When was the last time he’d eaten? Was it the last time he’d ever eat?

He’ll never get to see England. He never expected to be able to anyway, but still. It was a pleasant dream while it lasted.

He wonders if there really is a witch. 

— 

He doesn’t sleep. He probably wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, his calm facade fading into a mild panic that quakes through his bones. As pathetic an ending as it is, Harry wants to be able to truly experience what are likely his last hours. 

Once in a while he stands up  on shaky legs and paces the length of the cell. The air seems a little colder every time he does, like the world itself is falling asleep around him. The flowers from his journal are there, scattered on the dirty floor just out of reach, no longer carefully placed between the pages. He wonders where his journal is. Maybe they’ve already burned it, if that’s really how they expected him to be doing magic. 

The night feels like it lasts too long. The moon stays at the same point in the sky, shining brightly into into the crevice that shouldn’t be rewarded the dignity of being called a window. The air seems brittle somehow, like if he were to move  too far or too fast, if he were to reach out and touch the bars, the world around him would crumble.

He doesn’t reach out. He tucks his hands under his arms to try to preserve the bit of warmth he has left.

The night goes on forever.

Hary doesn’t sleep.

— 

It happens when the sky begins to lighten. 

It happens when Harry’s been crouched in the same position for so long that his legs have gone past the tetchy numb feeling. He can’t feel them at all now. 

It happens long past when Harry has given up any sort of hope.

It happens with a bang.

A literal bang, that shakes the foundation of the jail. Harry jumps, scrambling back with his arms to get away from the bars of the cell. There’s a flash of light, like when the sun first peeks above the horizon, and when it’s gone Harry isn’t alone.

The boy is stumbling. The boy - the one who appeared with a flash and a bang - trips over his own two feet and suddenly there’s a clatter to go with the bang as he runs straight into the bars, letting out a slew of curses that would make the preacher go red in the face if he heard.

_ “Shit _ shit fuck, oh hell that’s a fucking  _ metal rod _ who thought it’d be good to put that there oh  _ fuck _ that stings.”

He - the boy - the boy who appeared with a flash and a bang - the boy who appeared with a flash and a bang and ran right into the bars of Harry’s cell - he rubs at his forehead with one hand where it’s hit the bars and clutches at his knee with the other. 

“Oh bloody  _ fuck _ that hurts, who put that there?”

Harry’s legs have gotten that horrible tingling in them again, waking up and shooting pins and needles through him and making him cringe from the sudden feeling.

The boy mutters another string curses before collecting himself. He straightens and brushes the hair out of his face and Harry notices a smear of blood across his forehead.

Harry knows everyone who lives in Salem, but he’s definitely never seen this boy before. He wonders if maybe he’s seeing things. Maybe this means he’s the next to fall asleep. That would be laughable.

The boy turns away from him - Harry’s not even sure if he noticed him there in the first place - and strides toward the door. Something flips in Harry’s stomach at the idea that the boy is just  _ leaving him, _ which is ridiculous, but before he can muster the wherewithal to say anything, the boy stops at the doorway and raises his hands up, placing his palms against the door for only a moment. When he draws them back, there’s a netting that stretches from his fingertips to the door, thin and glowing a soft golden color. 

_ Ah, _ Harry thinks.  _ A witch. _

The boy spreads the webbing across the door, having to awkwardly stand on tip toes and jump to reach the top of the frame, covering it and then shaking it off of his hands like it’s nothing more than a spiderweb. 

Job done, he turns back and walks the short distance to stand at the bars, for the first time looking directly at Harry. 

“I’m the witch,” he says. “We need to get you out of here.”

Harry blinks. 

“Right,” he says. “You’re the witch.”

“That’s right,” says the boy. He sounds proud. “I’ve been trying to find you for weeks.”

“You have?” asks Harry. “Am I a witch?”

“Ah,” says the boy. “Well, no.”

Harry takes a deep breath. The room is cold and his legs are still not particularly into the idea of moving. He tries to process what this means but he feels… fuzzy around the edges. 

The boy is talking again, Harry realises. He tries to concentrate, to take in what he’s saying. 

“...That spell will only hold for so long but it shouldn’t really be a problem, considering the people I’ve run into here are filled to their ears with malice but no common sense.”

He seems to be talking to himself more than to Harry, which is good all things considered. He’s put his hands on the bars separating Harry from the world, and just like before, when he draws back there’s a golden webbing spreading. He smears it across the bars and it hangs like tree sap, falling in some places and sticking in others. Something happens - Harry’s not sure what - something in the way he moves his fingers and the way the netting weaves together, but it glows brighter for a moment before falling away completely; the bars and the netting shrivelling up like fall leaves and scattering like dust and dirt on the ground. 

Harry scoots back a few more paces, until his shoulder blades come into contact with the wall. 

The boy is looking at the mess with pride, but when he looks up again he locks eyes with Harry. “Well?” he says, stepping forward, kicking through the debris without notice. “You can’t very well stay here.”

“I don’t know that I trust going with you any more than staying here,” Harry says. His voice shakes, although not as much as he expected it to. At least sitting here he knows what comes next. 

The boy frowns. “I’ve spent weeks finding you,” he says as if this is reason enough for Harry to follow him. “You live, from what I’ve seen, in a place without anyone who cares about you, with no family and neighbors who clearly would burn you at the stake without any actual reason. And you want to stay here?”

Harry wraps his arms around his chest. “And?” he says, staring down at his feet, shoeless and dirty. There’s tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, but he doesn’t want to cry, not in front of this stranger who’s just laid Harry’s whole life out on a platter, showcasing every miserable aspect of it that Harry chooses to ignore. Because what else could he do? This is where he lives, how he lives, there isn’t a chance for something else.

“Oh,” says the boy, his flippant demeanor slipping, and Harry realises the unshed tears are running down his face. 

“I don’t trust you,” Harry says, his voice creaking, as the boy gets down on his knees in front of him. “I don’t know you and I don’t trust you, and I don’t know what you  _ m-mean _ that you’ve been looking for me.”

“You don’t have to trust me,” the boy says, sitting with a thud in front of him. Harry glances up through watery eyes and sees concern on his face. “You just have to trust everyone in this town  _ less, _ okay? Because I don’t want you burned at the stake, okay? So I want to take you somewhere else, where there are other people like you, and where we don’t have to worry about being killed all the time, yeah?”

He places a hand lightly, tentatively on Harry’s knee. It’s warm and gentle and Harry doesn’t want to like it, but it’s comforting. Soft. 

“I want to take you out of here, and I think you’ll start thinking a little better too, okay?” the boy says, glancing back as if expecting to see someone behind him. “Then we can talk about what to do next. How does that sound?”

“Name,” hiccups Harry, sniffling and trying to mop up his tears onto his shoulder. “I-I don’t know it.”

“Oh,” says the boy. “Right, sorry! I’m terribly bad at meeting people. I’m Louis. And you’re Harry.”

“I-I know  _ my _ name,” Harry says, scrunching his nose and  _ not _ smiling, definitely not.

“Yes, and now you know mine too,” says Louis. “And now we’re going to get up and walk out of here before anyone in this town wakes up. How does that sound?”

Harry stares. Louis looks terribly sincere. He nods, ever so slightly, and startles as Louis jumps up.

“Come on,” says Louis, holding out a hand. “You’ll feel better once we’re gone, I promise.”

— 

It’s… difficult to walk. 

Harry stumbles as he gets up, falling into Louis before quickly righting himself again. He feels woozy, like he hasn’t eaten in days. His steps are uneven, like when he’s fallen asleep at the bank of the river and has to rush back to the church quick before he’s even properly woken back up.

“You’re okay,” Louis says quietly, steadying Harry’s middle and walking with measured steps toward the door of the jail. “I’ve got you, come on.”

There’s a stinging at the soles of Harry’s feet as he walks through the debris where the bars used to be. He hisses but doesn’t want to stop and look. He feels like if he were to sit down now he would never get up again. It’s frightening and almost like a dream, the way his mind has fogged over. 

Louis’s got him securely around the waist now - when did that happen? - and with his free hand he reaches out and tears down the webbing that covers the door in one fluid movement. It comes cleanly, glistening and ethereal in his hand like a bank of stars pulled from the sky. 

Louis nudges the door open with his foot and they’re greeted with the dawn light shining in.

“We’ve just got to get to the safehouse,” Louis says, his voice hushed as if speaking too loud would wake the town. 

They leave the dark, dusty quiet of the jail and Harry begins to feel a bit warmer as soon as he walks through the door. The sun hits his skin and turns it from ashy to pink again, and he breathes in the crisp morning air. 

They speed up a little as they walk - right down the center of the road, in plain sight for anyone to see. Harry finds himself glancing nervously in all directions, even knowing that the only people up this early should be out in the fields. 

They’ve almost reached the end of the main street when a door creaks open, and Harry stops. He stops walking - making Louis stumble backward. He stops breathing. He doesn’t dare look at which house it was, who’s caught them. 

Louis, whispers something that Harry doesn’t hear, but the next thing he knows the golden netting - is it the same netting from the door of the jail? - is thrown over his head, draping him like a gaudy veil. Harry flinches, waiting for it to burn him to the ground like bars of the cell had been. He whips his head to Louis, eyes wide and full of betrayal, but Louis quickly puts a finger to his lips before turning the gesture into adjusting his coat. 

“Morning Mr. Peterson!” he calls, seeming to look right through Harry.

Harry can hear the grumblings of Mr. Peterson, and a moment later the slam of a door. He breathes in a deep breath. He is one and whole and not turned to ash. 

“Deep breaths,” Louis says, and then he’s tugging the netting down again. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

They move faster now, Harry feeling the need to get out of town as quickly as possible. It feels almost like a poison has left his body since leaving the jail - his mind feels clearer, faster.

“We’re going toward the river,” Harry says, separating himself from Louis’s embrace now that he’s confident he can hold himself up. It’s a question as much as it is a statement.

“We are,” confirms Louis. 

Harry nods. “Okay,” he says.

They leave the main road, making their way towards Harry’s favorite spot; his clearing, his bluebottle flowers, his safe place.

It’s when they finally pass over the bridge that Louis slows them down. They weren’t running by any means, but Louis seems to relax, letting his shoulders drop. 

Harry slows all the way to a stop. Louis gets a few paces ahead before realising Harry isn’t with him and turning back.

On the inside, Harry is having all sorts of doubts.

Louis - he’s never seen Louis before today. Apparently Louis is a witch. Apparently he has been looking for Harry. That’s ridiculous, no one is looking for Harry. The whole town knows who he is and they know what he is - an orphan, unwanted. Why would Louis want him?

The bottoms of his feet ache; it’s becoming more apparent now that he’s standing in the soft clover. They feel like he’s walked over a field of burs. 

No one comes to this side of the river. Harry’s been coming here for years, and aside from the stray escaped livestock from time to time, he can’t remember another human who’s crossed this bridge. It’s rickety and old. All that sits on the other side, spread out in front of them, is the field of wildflowers and the foundations of that old house.

Has Louis brought him here only to mock him? To take him out to this deserted area and leave him to the wilderness?

He’s shaking a little, wondering how he was so foolish as to just  _ go along with this. _ What has he done? 

“Are you finally thinking clearly then?”

Harry glances up, meeting Louis’s eye. He doesn’t look angry, or even surprised. 

“What?”

“You were feeling a little unfocused back there, I’d assume. Common side effect, trust me.”

“I-” Harry swallows. Louis speaks so confidently, as if Harry is just supposed to know what’s going on, to follow his train of thought. “I don’t understand who you are. You’re the witch but you - I don’t know what you want from  _ me. _ You say I’m not the witch, but why do you care? Why would you lead me here? There’s  _ nothing here.” _

He’s raising his voice, desperation clear in the way it trembles. “I don’t  _ understand. _ Why wouldn’t you just have left me there to die? I don’t trust you! I shouldn’t trust anyone! You should just stop helping me, you shouldn’t- shouldn’t-” he falters. “Why are you doing this?”

“You’ve not argued with the fact that I’m a witch. You haven’t cared that I can do magic. You’ve lived in a church your whole life, as far as I’m aware, and you’ve been fed the vitriolic hatred spewed by that fool who calls himself a preacher, yet you aren’t scared of me, or angry at me for what I am. Have you considered why that is?”

Harry frowns. “You…” He swallows. He doesn’t know.

Louis smiles. It’s a fond smile, not a malicious one. “You’re terribly stubborn,” he says. “And brave. I like that about you.”

“I’m not,” Harry argues back immediately. “I’m not brave at all. I’m running away, aren’t I?”

“Escaping,” Louis corrects. “You wouldn’t’ve- They would have killed you, Harry. There’s nothing cowardly in escaping from danger.” He takes a tentative step forward and Harry doesn’t step back. He doesn’t want to. “You’re brave not to trust the only person offering you help,” Louis says. “I’d appreciate it if you  _ did _ trust me, mind you, but it’s brave of you nonetheless.”

“But I don’t understand,” Harry says. “There’s nothing past this field but forest. This is as far as the town goes. You’ve brought us to a dead end - what else should I think?”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Louis says, his face lighting up. “That’s where you’re very, very wrong and if you’ll follow me just a little bit further I can show you exactly where we’re going.”

He hold out his hand, palm up, in offering. 

Harry looks at it warily, aware of the magic that comes from those fingers. Still, he tentatively reaches out and takes hold, shivering as Louis wraps his fingers around Harry’s and squeezes once.

Led by the hand, Harry follows Louis through the field. He keeps his mouth shut even as he realises he’s being led toward the burned house.

Louis slows to a stop right at the front steps.. There’s no door, and barely any walls, so it can’t even be truly called a house at this point. Still, Harry watches as Louis goes as if to knock on a door that isn’t there. 

His eyes grow wide as Louis seems to grasp at something and pulls out of the air a silvery strand. The further he pulls, the more strands appear connected to that one, until a fine mesh seems to be peeling out of the air. In its stead, like looking through a dusty window, Harry spies what seems to be the inside of the room. Hiding in plain sight.

Louis turns back to him with a grin, jovial and bright. “After you,” he says, pulling the silver mesh just far enough to make a space to step through.

Harry does not move forward. He absolutely does not let go of Louis’s hand. He stares into the darkened space. “Where does it go?”

Louis’s smile doesn’t falter in the slightest, but his eyes grow softer. “Stubborn,” he chides. “It goes inside of the house, of course. Here, let’s flip around so you don’t have to let go of my hand, okay?”

Harry thinks for a minute before nodding. He feels like a young child needing to be led about, but the embarrassment of it doesn’t convince him to lessen his grip any. 

They do an awkward turnabout, Louis apparently needing to keep ahold of the silvery mesh in order for it to stay open. 

When they’ve maneuvered themselves appropriately, Louis pulls it open a little further. “Go on,” he says. “I’m right here.”

Harry gulps. He steps into the darkness.

— 

Inside, it’s a house. 

A  _ house. _

It’s small and dark, a one room cottage with walls made of stone. There are tall and thin windows on each of the walls, gaps in the stone that let the light in. It smells different, here. Dusty and cool and like the air is from somewhere else. 

Louis steps in behind him - hands still clasped tightly together - and as soon as he lets go of the mesh, it rolls back up the wall; a door sits where it was, simple and wooden. No sign it was anything else.

“Hello!” Louis says - shouts, really - making Harry jump. “Wake up, you lazy cows!”

Harry turns, eyebrows scrunched together, trying to figure out who Louis is trying to yell to. There aren’t actual cows in this little cottage, surely he would have noticed that…

“Oh, close your mouth and hold your horses you absolute menace,” a voice says, and Harry swivels to see a pile of blankets on the ground near an empty hearth begin to move. “We were up all night because of  _ you, _ might as well let us rest a bit now.”

A figure sits up, blankets falling aside to reveal a boy about Harry’s own age, a shock of blond hair sticking up in all directions as he rubs sleepily at his eyes. A mumbling of some kind comes from the blankets and Harry realises there’s actually  _ two _ people there.

“What’s that?” the boy asks the blankets. A thick accent sits in his mouth, the words tumbling around it remind Harry of Mr. Callahan, the pig farmer in town. 

“Liam says you’re a dirty puzzle and your mum is too.”

“Liam can take that back or he’s getting sat on,” Louis says. “Come on, you’ve at least got to act like you’re alive long enough to meet young Harry here, he’s traveled quite a ways.”

Harry frowns. He’s traveled maybe a mile, that’s not a particularly long distance. 

Still, the boy lights up. The room is dim, but Harry can see the smile on his face grow as he finally looks up and takes stock of them. “Young Harry, you say?”

Harry does not say. Harry continues to look. 

“Yes  _ I say,” _ Louis mocks. “Come on, we need some breakfast. If you two aren’t up, you’re not getting any.”

— 

The blond boy with the strong accent is named Niall.

The sleepy one who offered a smile when he finally got up but hasn’t woken up enough to speak is Liam. 

They’re sat around a table now, with a loaf of bread that Louis’s cut up to share between them and thick slices of cheese passed around.

Harry finds that he’s famished. He had felt rather sick at first, until he started in and his stomach seemed to realise just how empty it was.

Niall talks quite a bit. It seems to be just the sort of person he is. Harry’s not at all sure  _ what _ he’s talking about, naming person after person that he’s never heard of and saying who did what and who said what. Liam seems to be in a perpetual state of rolling his eyes.

Harry wonders if the people in town have figured out yet that he’s gone. They’re bound to soon. 

“Right,” Louis says eventually, cutting off Niall’s prattling, which doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. “I think it’s about time we get down to business.”

Harry swallows down the last of his bread. He’s actually had twice as much as the other three - Louis had produced another piece seemingly out of nowhere after Harry had scarfed his first slice down so fast.

“Right,” says Niall, turning to Harry. “Young Harry, how do you feel about that piece of sludge you call a town?”

Harry looks to Louis. 

Louis shrugs. “It’s a fair question.”

“Um,” says Harry. He wonders if he’s supposed to be honest here. “Well, the people there don’t really… want me alive, at the moment. So maybe… not good?”

Louis smiles widely and Niall lets out a peal of laughter.

“That’s one way to put it!” Niall grabs Liam’s shoulder and shakes it lightly. “Did’ja hear that, Liam? Harry says it’s maybe  _ not good. _ They were about to burn him at the stake and he’s polite enough to call it  _ not good!” _

Liam gives Harry a look that Harry interprets as  _ I’m sorry he’s like this. _

“It’s still the right answer, I’d say,” Louis says. “Considering you were never supposed to grow up there to start with.”

“I wasn’t?” asks Harry, tentatively looking to Louis. “You- you speak as if you know me.”

“I don’t know you,” Louis corrects. “But I do know  _ about _ you. Most everyone I know knows about you. Your mum was from up north, she and my mum were friends.”

“Up north?” Harry asks, confused. “What, like New York?”

Niall snorts but Louis continues. “No, up north of England - she was Scottish.”

Scottish. No one had ever mentioned that. “She was from Scotland?”

Louis nods. “See, Harry, you didn’t seem particularly shocked at the idea that witches are real, right?”

Harry shrugs, looking down at his hands, twisting together on the tabletop. “Sorta made sense, I thought.”

Louis reaches a hand across and lays it gently on Harry’s, stilling them. “That’s good,” he praises. “How would you feel about the idea of other, say, fairy tales being real?”

Harry twists his mouth into a wry grin. “The preacher always said fairy tales are from the devil.”

“Your preacher doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he can stick his sermons right up-”

_ “Niall,” _ Louis hisses. 

“Not sorry.”

“I know. As I was  _ saying, _ I think we’ve both established your preacher isn’t… always correct in his knowledge. Have you ever heard of a kelpie?”

Harry wracks his brain, thinking back to the stories he heard from other children when they were little and loved to gossip before anything real was worth gossiping about, spreading fairy tales like truth from person to person. “Kelpies are supposed to be… women who can turn into horses, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right! I mean, they’re not human really. They’re sort of fae- fairies. And they deal closely with witches. Very good at passing on information because they can run a lot faster on four legs than we can on two.”

“Okay…” says Harry. “So, you’re saying kelpies are real?”

Louis nods. “I am,” he says. “And I’m saying your mum was one.”

Oh.

Huh.

“She went missing,” Louis continues. “Years ago, before I was born. Apparently she was a really good friend of my mum - was heartbroken when she disappeared. Mum said she was pretty sure she knew what happened, but no one could prove anything at the time.”

“What… what happened?” Harry asks, voice nearly a whisper.

“She boarded a ship,” Louis says. “We’re not sure, but we think she was forced. Kelpies can be caught while they’re wearing their horse skin by slipping a halter around their neck. We couldn’t ever figure out who, or where she had gone, but mum was certain that’s what happened.”

Harry feels a little ill. He never knew his mum, but hearing about her suffering tugs at his heart. “So what… what happened then?”

“Nothing,” says Louis, sitting back. “There wasn’t any way to find her, and people eventually gave up. Everyone except my mum, apparently. She’s an excellent witch, you know.”

“Louis goes on about how good of a witch she is on a daily basis,” Niall whispers to Harry conspiratorially. “You’ll get used to it.”

“She kept a scrawl open,” Louis says. Harry has no idea what a scrawl is, but he doesn’t interrupt. “One to try to find her location. Nothing happened with it, until a few years ago when it started sending a signal from the Americas. It was a little off, like it wasn’t quite her.  _ I  _  was the one who figured out it was you!”

“Me?” asks Harry. He figures he should have seen this coming, but he still feels surprised.

“Yep,” Louis says. “And mum gave me the task.”

“Hey!”

“And Niall, of course. It’s our practicum. Once we bring you home, we’re certified in our witch training.”

“Hasn’t been easy either,” Niall says. “Do you know how difficult to find you are?”

“That’s what went wrong,” Louis tells him. “Kept trying people who were the right age, but the spells just kept putting them to sleep. They wouldn’t do that with anyone who had magic in their veins.”

“But- are they going to wake up?” Harry asks. “They will, wont they?”

“Of course,” Louis assures him. He sounds so confident, although Harry would bet that Louis sounds confident about everything he says. “Give them another week, they’ll be just fine.”

“So then…” Harry purses his lips, thinking. “So we’re going to Scotland?”

“Oh Harry,” says Louis with a wide grin that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. “We’re already here.”

Harry’s eyes grow wide. 

“That was me!” Niall cut in. “I’m the one who’s good with location magic!”

They’re in… Scotland? They’re not in Massachusetts?

“Can I…?” Harry points to the window and Louis nods. He stands up shakily and walks over to it.    
The view outside is nothing like the bluebottle field. It’s rolling green hills for miles upon miles and a grey sky that looks to be mid afternoon. 

He turns back with wide eyes. 

“Welcome home,” says Louis. “I hope you don’t mind, we don’t have a church attic for you to sleep in. You’ll have to try out a real house.”

— 

Louis’s mum’s name is Jay, but she insists that Harry call her mum. The first thing she does is draw a pink-gold netting out of her palms and drape it around Harry. 

“The protection your mum would have offered you, if she could,” she says. 

The house isn’t huge, but it’s warm and busy, with four little witchlings running about and trying to get a grip on their magic. They have a business, apparently, with the local chemist. No one attempts to get them killed. The church does not send mobs with torches to their doors. It’s rather a shock.

Another shock is the day that Harry finds out Liam and Niall are in love. Liam isn’t a witch like Niall, and he’s not a kelpie (or half-kelpie) like Harry. Louis explains to him once that Liam is a changeling who was left to a human family who, once they figured out what he was, violently rejected him. He hasn’t been able to speak since then, but Niall speaks enough for the two of them. 

Harry learns that as long as he avoids iron he’s fine. Iron makes his brain fuzzy and burns if it’s pure enough. The blisters at the bottom of his feet attest to that. 

He’s happy here, though. Happier than he ever thought he would be. Part of him expects that any day now he’ll wake up in the church attic once again and this will all have been a dream.

But then he feels Louis roll over and put an arm over his waist, keeping him close even in sleep, and thinks about the time that he shared that fear with Louis. 

Louis had kissed him very softly on the forehead, pulled him close, and told him firmly that he would find Harry no matter where he was. He’d go to the ends of the earth for him. 

After all, he already did once.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, tolerated it, or just want to show compassion on an author, [here is the fic post!](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/post/172670668219/always-darkest-before-the-sunrise)


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